How To Save A Life
by repmetsyrrah
Summary: Superman saves a life, then life moves on. Oneshot.


**A/N: **Written for the ES.c FicGrab prompt: Thank You. Decided to go outside my comfort zone and try for a fic that isn't reliant on anyone reading any of my other works. This rather came out of the blue though. Hope it's not too bad. To anyone waiting on updates to _Revelations_, it's coming, rl is just really screwing me over right now.

**How To Save A Life **

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_Always wear clean socks,_ Aaron Thompson's grandmother had often told him, _because you never know where your day will end up._

Maybe it made sense to her how such a thing could be helpful, but the last thing Aaron thought would help him as he lay face down on the bank floor was the fact he had put on clean socks that day.

"Keep those heads down and eyes on the floor, people."

Aaron flinched as he chanced a look up and meet the eyes of one of the robbers who was casually drumming his fingers on his machine gun.

He looked back down, pressing his hands harder onto the back of his head and trying desperately not to draw attention to himself.

There were five men, all with at least two weapons and, though no one was hurt yet, Aaron had no doubts they'd follow through on their threats to kill anyone who made a fuss.

It seemed like he'd been lying there forever when the shouting began. It came from the direction of what he assumed was the vault as it was where the terrified teller had lead the other men. It sounded like arguing and it grew louder until two of the men entered the lobby again.

"Well I'd rather take my chance out there," one of them yelled.

"Fine, get yourself shot, more for me," the other yelled back.

Aaron had resisted the urge to look up and chance a bullet in his head so he was completely unprepared when a hand roughly grabbed the back of his collar and pulled him to his feet. The thought of struggling may have entered his head but his collar was choking him and he was becoming increasingly certain he was indeed going to get shot today. If he didn't suffocate first.

The light almost blinded Aaron as the robber dragged him through the doors, outside onto the bank steps and held the pistol painfully hard against his temple. He saw the waiting police raising their own weapons but hesitate when the saw the robber was dragging a hostage.

"Put the guns down or I blow the kid's head off."

Aaron wasn't stupid, he knew the difference between the movies and reality and he certainly knew which one this was.

It would be alright though, he thought hysterically, he was wearing clean socks. They matched and everything. Grandma was going to be so proud when he met her at the pearly gates.

The cock of the gun was unbelievably loud, especially when it was pressed right to his head. He closed his eyes and thought maybe he should prepare himself or something but then his mind went blank with fear and he just hoped it didn't hurt too much.

There was a sudden breeze and a harsh, tearing sound of metal he would find out later was the gun being crumpled into a small ball. The body behind him was gone too, though he wasn't sure when it had happened.

His eyes were still closed and he only had time to reflect that he was probably going to fall over because his legs were in no way capable of supporting his body before there was someone holding him up again.

"Are you okay, sir?" a calm, reassuring voice asked.

Even before he opened his eyes Aaron knew what he'd see and he wasn't disappointed. The red, blue and yellow insignia of Metropolis' Man of Steel was the most fantastic sight Aaron had seen in his entire life.

Aaron knew he had somehow found the strength to nod and he was carried over to the waiting EMTs as Superman rounded up the rest of the robbers and checked the remaining hostages.

Aaron was taken to hospital briefly because he had been in shock but he received a clean bill of health and was released in the evening after giving his statement to the police and talking to some reporters about the experience and being rescued by Superman.

It was only when he climbed into his brother's car to go home, his mother in the back insisting he never leave her sight again, that something occurred to him.

"I never said thank you."

His brother reassured him Superman wouldn't mind, that Aaron had obviously been under quite a bit of stress and that maybe he'd get a chance to thank him later. Hopefully not under the same circumstances but perhaps, if it really meant that much, he'd told him, after the fifth time Aaron had mentioned it at dinner, he could track him down at the charity things he was always attending.

But two days later, Superman was gone. The world looked to the skies and found them empty and after time the slow, creeping realisation that the Man of Steel had left them to their own devices took hold.

Yet life, as it has a way of doing, went on.

Three years after the day he would have died, Aaron Thompson found himself with his life in danger yet again.

"I will kill you for this," his wife yelled as another contraction hit.

"Just one more push," the doctor told her.

"You push!" Sandy yelled at him, "I carried this thing for nine months, the least someone else could do is give birth to it for me."

He had forgot to put on clean socks too, he though, as his wife crushed his hand in hers and almost ripped his arms off. He had gone straight from work to the hospital, if his wife carried through with her promise, grandma would be very disappointed.

Thankfully, the person they'd all been waiting on for the last nine months decided to make her appearance before Sandy had a chance to inflict any fatal injuries on her husband.

Luckily it also signalled a complete about turn in his wife's sentiments towards him. "I love you," she told him, as they looked down on their daughter. Even covered in blood and other things Aaron didn't want to think about, she was still the most amazing thing he'd ever laid eyes on.

"Oh, wow," he breathed in amazement as he watched her lying in her mother's arms. "Look what we did."

Amelia, as she was named, in honour of her mother's late mother, was clean, feed and asleep in what seemed like only seconds to Aaron but must have really been a while as the sun had disappear and the few stars visible through the haze of the city's lights were shining in the sky.

Sandy was soon sleeping soundly too, and Aaron couldn't blame her. He knew he should probably get some shut-eye too, if his workmates with children of their own were right, he wouldn't be getting much for quite a while.

But he wasn't in the mood for sleeping and instead he found himself on the roof, looking for some fresh air and some space of his own- another thing he had been told he'd be lacking now he was a father.

A distant police siren caught his attention as it speed off to a far corner of the city, and the sound, as it had for the last three years, pulled him back to that day on the steps of the bank. He'd been certain he had been going to die that day.

Then he had been saved. At the time it hadn't occurred to him but now, thinking of his newborn daughter and his beautiful wife whom he'd meet two weeks after the incident… None of that would have happened if he'd died that day.

It was a rather obvious thought but it was also very true. Superman hadn't just stopped a bullet entering his head or kept his heart going a bit longer, it was his life he'd saved, his whole life, not the one he'd had then but the one he'd been going to have. The one he had now.

And he'd never even got the chance to thank him.

Perhaps… he frowned, looking around to check he was alone. Then, feeling a bit silly he looked up to the stars and spoke out loud.

"Superman… I don't where you are, but just in case your hearing really is that good and I don't get a chance to say this to your face, even though it will never be enough for what you saved- what you let me have…

"Thank you."

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Reviews are love!


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